What Food Do Dogs Find Most Delicious?

Like humans, dogs know which foods they think taste good, and which they think taste bad. They have taste buds to help them do this, they just don’t have as many as us. Humans have around 9,000, where the average dog has around 1,700. Of those tastebuds, they have special ones located on the tip of their tongue for tasting water, and ones on the back of their throat for tasting the food they don’t fully chew. The rest of their taste buds are scattered around their tongue helping them identify sweet, sour, salty, and better tastes. Of these flavors, which does your dog prefer?

Evolving Their Taste

Since dogs evolved to eat meat, they cannot taste sodium as well as humans. Meat naturally has enough salt to satisfy their need, so they do not have to seek it out. Even though they can’t taste it as well, they do still appreciate it.

In the wild, a wolf’s diet is 80% meat. Our furry friends may get their desire for meat from them, but they are not the carnivores like their ancestors. They are omnivores and enjoy both plant and animals in their diet.

Dogs have also evolved to have individual preferences on what kind of meat they enjoy. Studies show that the average dog prefers beef and pork over chicken and lamb. They also like warm, moist food over cold, dry foods. Like humans, these preferences can come from what they ate growing up.

Dogs like a variety in their diet, and if they have to eat the same thing every day, they could get sick of it. Try giving them something new to see if their preference has changed over time.

Canine’s Choice

It may not be easy to figure out which type of food your dog likes best, but there are tests you can try. Give your pup a different type of food each day and see which one he eats the most of or which one he eats the fastest. You can also set out two different types of food and see which one he goes to first.

While sometimes these tests may work, there are a variety of factors that can skew these results. Your dog could be hungrier on one day, he could lick the bowl clean every day, he could eat from the bowl on the right when there is a choice. It’s hard to run these tests yourself when there are so many things to take into account.

This is why dog food companies test hundreds of dogs to see what the majority of them prefer. They use meticulous measurements like how many seconds it takes the dog to eat the food and how big the bites are. According to the American Kennel Club, use this process to test your dogs preference and get more accurate results.

• Make sure your dog isn’t food aggressive
• You’ll need two bowls, a piece of screen, and two types of food that are the same small size
• Place one piece of each type in each bowl and cover both bowls with a screen so your dog can sniff each one
• Now place the bowls an equal distance from him and remove the screen
• Record which food he eats first
• Replace the screen and do it again, alternating sides
• Do this until your dog consistently shows he has a favorite, then compare with another flavor

Hopefully, with these things in mind, you can find out what foods your dog find delicious!